The long out of print Ashton / Lord First Of The Big Bands album is being reissued by Purple Records in the near future. The news was being delayed but the label are concerned that Wounded Bird Records in America have announced it as 'forthcoming'. Wounded Bird have no rights to this album whatsoever and it is clearly a pirating operation, so anyone tempted be very careful.

This is what Purple Records are saying: "The label has already remastered the album using the vinyl production tapes. However a number of 16 track masters have been unearthed from Air, Island and Apple Studios and so we are going to get listening copies done from these to see what else can be found, then speak to Jon and see what he says. So it should be worth waiting for. In the meantime if you are sat on any of the out-take pictures from the cover shoot or the live concert do get in touch!"

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Jon performed at an 'Armed Forces Day' show at Fawley Court, Henley (c/o Lord & Lady McAlpine), on June 27th, as part of a band of local musicians. The setlist was:

All Right Now / Let's Work Together / Little Queenie / Call Me The Breeze / Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On / Miss You / Honky Tonk Women / Gimme Some Lovin' / Born Under A Bad Sign / Smoke On The Water / Instant Karma. The band:- Jon Lord - Hammond organ and piano, Steve Balsamo - lead vocals, Micky Moody - guitar(+ lead vocals on Call Me The Breeze and Let's Work Together), Joe Brown - guitar (+ lead vocals on Little Queenie & Whole Lotta Shakin'), Nick Fyffe - bass, Steve White - drums, Sam Brown - vocals, Aitch McRobbie - vocals.

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Jon Lord has been lined up to appear at the 'Baden-Württemberg musiziert' show at the Kreuzeiche Stadion, Reutlingen, Germany, on July 24th 2009. He will apparently be performing a movement from the Concerto, playing alongside the Württembergisches Philharmonic Orchestra and students from the Mannheim Pop-Akademie.

MK#jl700227 (with thanks to www.jonlord.org)

photo: Bryan Greene

According to the Crawley Advertiser, Jon Lord has written a new piece especially for the closing night of the Shipley Arts Festival, to be performed on Sunday July 5th at 6.30pm at St Andrew's Church, Nuthurst, Sussex. The new 20-minute piece is called To Notice Such Things and will be performed by Jon Lord on piano, with flute and a 17-piece string orchestra.

Also performing will be The Bernardi Chamber Orchestra, composer/conductor James Whitbourne and pianist Maria Marchant. Other music lined up includes Henry Purcell's Chaconny in G minor, Handel's Zadock The Priest, Gerald Finzi's Eclogue and excerpts from Benjamin Britten's St Nicolas. The evening will bring to a close the eighth year of the Shipley Arts Festival. Tickets £15. Box office: 01403 750220. Tickets are also available on line from the Capital Theatre, Horsham: /www.esro.thecapitolhorsham.com.

NY#jl7002261 (with thanks to Richard Breese)

It only seems a while ago that we were all enjoying the 30th Anniversary of Deep Purple's Concerto. To mark the 40th Anniversary Jon Lord is planning to perform the work again, this time in The National Concert Hall, Dublin, on September 24th.

The show follows the current pattern, with the Concerto, one or two pieces from his solo albums and Deep Purple's Child In Time.

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Jon Lord's album WINDOWS will be available again in August. The album was recorded at a special concert in Munich in June 1974. Jon Lord, fellow Deep Purple musicians David Coverdale (vocals) and Glenn Hughes (bass), and a host of rock luminaries including Ray Fenwick, Pete York and Tony Ashton took part.

The album was issued on Purple Records back in 1999 but has been unavailable for several years. This reissue is being newly remastered to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the concert and comes initially as a limited edition digipak.

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Steve Harley's online diary mentions his ChildLine encounter with Jon:

"ChildLine Rocks rocked. Jon Lord is a friendly chap. A cool and unaffected sort of guy. He played a clever set with Steve Balsami singing to the Lord Hammond B3. They travel to European cities, just the two of them, and meet there with a full orchestra and rock band, comprised of local players, rehearse for a day and then play big cross-over concerts to 3,000 or so people. I thought it all sounded a little nerve-wracking, like arriving to find your backside has gone south for the winter, as the leader calls the first beats. Jon Lord is made of the sort of stuff that makes a man a man, for all tha’. No, he said, it’s exciting. And I understood: the adventure, the gamble, the risks all make it worthwhile. And it probably seldom, if ever, fails to score."

DB#jl700228, with thanks to Tony Bilny and www.steveharley.com (photo: Bryan Greene)

ChildLine Rocks, the rock concert that aids the ChildLine charity, will take place on June 1st at the IndigO2, London. The line-up (with more names to be announced), currently looks like this: Uriah Heep / Jon Lord / Glenn Hughes / Hot Leg / The Pretty Things / Sons Of Albion / Steve Balsamo / Andy Newmark / Mollie Marriott. The show was recorded for a CD release.

Also, Jon Lord and band will perform the Concerto in Sao Paulo on May 2. 2009 an open air concert 'for free'..! As Jose Ricardo Diniz (who told me about this) says, "its cool, giving a chance to people who can't buy expensive tickets watch a great piece of music."

DPAS live reviews: ChildLine Rocks 2009

SR/SH#jl7002261 (photo: Denis Zürcher) with thanks to Stuart Hamilton

Jon Lord is taking the long-view and has added two more combined Lord / Concerto shows:

DECEMBER 6 2009 – Kieler Schloss, Kiel, Germany. Concerto for Group and Orchestra, The Telemann Experiment, One From the Meadow, Sarabande, Wait a While, Gigue. Performed by Jon Lord with DCRS (Hagen), Steve Balsamo (vocals) and Kasia Laska (vocals) and the Kiel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Mr. Fritzsch

JANUARY 23 2010 – Nikolaisaal, Potsdam (near Berlin), Germany. Concerto for Group and Orchestra and more. Performed by Jon Lord with Demon's Eye, Kasia Laska (vocals), Bernd Martin (vocals) and the Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg (Babelsberg being the long-time centre of the German movie industry) conducted by Scott Lawton.

Above thanks to Nigel Young.

JANUARY 28 2010 - MANCHESTER FREE TRADE... Sorry, just Simon day-dreaming. And anyhow they pulled all the interior out and built a hotel in it. As you do..

SR#jl700230 photo: Marcin Zalewski

Jon Lord is due to appear on Nicky Horne's Planet Rock radio show (8pm, Thursday, May 28th) to talk about his involvement in this year's Childline Rocks concert (which takes place on June 1st at the Indigo2, London.)

NY#jl700229 photo: Peter Rossen

Jon Lord is scheduled to open the Fall Arts Fest in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, on September 1, performing with the Bulgarian Opera Philharmonic Society.

In response to our report that the show will be made up of two parts, consisting of Deep Purple music and Jon's solo work, Jon says "There will be two - possibly three - Purple numbers it is true, but the concert consists mainly of Concerto for Group and Orchestra in the 1st half and music from my solo work in the second. Just didn't want people turning up expecting an evening of Deep Purple classics with orchestra!"

Ticket prices range between BGN 30 - 60, and were made available from May 21.

NY#jl7002281 photo: Peter Rossen

The original Hoochie Coochie Men live CD recorded in February 2003 is coming out again in May (the third edition in five years by our reckoning!). It comprises the original double live CD plus a bonus disc of odds and ends, including various interviews, a couple of rehearsal tracks, guide vocal tracks from their studio album (the originals before Gillan and Barnes were dubbed on), etc. There has been no advance notice of this, but dpas online will stock it.

The excellent studio album (see below) is still available as well.

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Jon Lord is overseeing a performance of Concerto for Group and Orchestra in Edinburgh at the Usher Hall on October 5th. It will enlist the help of students at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama Glasgow, and local school children are also being invited to take part. Keyboards are due to be handled by Fraser Mitchell, 18, of Livingston. Jon was present at Stevenson's College in Edinburgh on May 12th for the show's public launch :

"Lord, who was playing his signature Hammond organ in the legendary piece in a huge performance in Sao Paulo, Brazil, just two weeks ago, is actively involved in the Scottish premiere of the 40-year old classic. Lord will also play Hammond, alongside an extraordinary line-up with a full rock group and full symphony orchestra, with every musician - barring Lord himself - a young music student studying in Scotland." see the full article at The Herald website.

See also our Jon Lord tour dates.

SR#jl7002242 (Thanks to The Scotsman, Kev Dixon, Stuart Hamilton and Mike Garrett) photo:Kevin Dixon

Jon Lord is lined up for the Lichfield Festival on July 17th 2009. The full line-up for this year's event has been released, and the festival programme is available to download (in PDF format) from www.lichfieldfestival.org . Early tickets were available for members of the festival association, and opened for the rest of us on April 17th, also from the event's dedicated website. Lichfield is just north of Birmingham.

According to the Lichfield festival director's blog, Jon Lord visited Lichfield on March 31st to have a go on the cathedral organ in preparation for his performance.... "Now, having heard a bit of what the cathedral organ can do, he's gone off to plan how best to use it in his event."

With a lot going on at the festival, it's easy to miss the fact that Jon Lord will also be "in conversation" at the Lichfield Garrick on the morning of the concert. 10.30am in fact. Has anyone told Jon? Tickets are £5.50, it lasts around an hour.

Also

SR#jl7002253 (Thanks to Nigel Young for the tip-off, Richard Breese and Mick Wilkinson)

Jon had variety of live appearances lined up for Switzerland in December and January (and not just on the slopes). He performed a selection of music from the Durham Concerto at the Kaiserball (Deb's Ball) on Saturday December 13th alongside the 100 piece Nota Bene Symphony Orchestra. The music was also due to be interpreted by the 'Dance Prom' dancers with choreography by Kinsun Chan.

Jon then had two concert dates with Nota Bene, at the Tonhalle, Zurich on January 10th, and KKL Lucerne on January 12th. The programme for the shows comprised solo album selections including 'Wait a While', 'Telemann Experiment', 'One from the Meadow' , and 'Gigue', followed by Part III of the Durham-Concerto ('Rags & Galas' and 'Nocturne'). Other musicians appearing at the latter shows included Gotthard singer Steve Lee, and Coverdale Page bassist / comedian Guy Pratt.

DB #jl7002201 (with thanks to Denis Zürcher)

DPAS Review : Jon Lord : Tonhalle, Zurich. January 10th 2009 new

Visit our poster gallery to see a larger version of the January poster (pictured opposite)

On Saturday November 8th, the Trondheim Soloists (who have worked together with Jon on several occasions recent years) celebrated their 20th Anniversary with a concert in the Olav's Hall in Trondheim with a number of guests including Jon Lord. He played a piece on piano ( 'For Example (EG)') together with the orchestra, (a newspaper review referred to it as 'soft music'!) Also, the new CD by Norwegian singer / songwriter Espen Lind came out in August 2008, and as mentioned in the last Darker Than Blue magazine has Jon participating on two tracks; 'Sweet Love' and 'The Music Takes You There'. Jon's Hammond sound is clearly audible on both, but there are no solo spots. The Trondheim Soloists are also on the album, which fits into the (huge) sector of the pop /rock / acoustic genre. It is issued on Universal Music Norway.

Hans Peter Jenssen / DB/NY #jl7002181

BBC's "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross" on 3rd October featured an interview with Faye Dunaway and showed a clip of newsreel from November 1967 when she came to Carnaby Street to promote the 'Bonnie and Clyde' movie. "Don't worry about the weapons being handed out" announced the commentary as the film showed ... Jon Lord, in gangster garb. (For the last Artwoods single they had tried changing their name to St Valentine's Day Massacre) The show is repeated tonight (Saturday - well, the early hours of Sunday really at 1.30am). The newsreel clip last turned up on a BBC game show back in 1999.

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The Jim Capaldi tribute concert at the Roadhouse in London, January 2007 is out both as a twenty track double CD, and DVD. Jon  Lord is listed as playing on three tracks, alongside Pete Townshend, Yusuf Islam, Joe Walsh, Dennis Locorriere, Steve Winwood, and Paul Weller, among other),

Both CD and DVD are shipping now from dpas online.

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Two years after it was first scheduled, "Tony Ashton & Friends - Endangered Species Live At Abbey Road" is now in production, albeit having moved to a German label. Ian Paice and Jon Lord appeared as part of a reunited Whitesnake and PAL, at the special show staged in EMI's Abbey Road studio back in 2000, along with Bernie Marsden and many more.

Full track listing at dpas mailorder where pre-orders can be placed. SR#jl700226

Vinyl fans can look forward to a limited vinyl edition of recent The Gemini Suite studio version. It will be a single disc in a gatefold sleeve. There is also a plan to issue the original live version on vinyl at the same time, which has never been on this format before. This will also be a single disc, in a single cover, but with an inner bag and using the rare pictures from the session. Both will be high quality German pressings and the catalogue numbers will carry on where the original label left off.

This can now be pre-ordered from dpas mailorder

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dpas mailorder have been able to get a few copies in of this rare Jon Lord session, a Christmas CD from 2006 by Norway singer Maria Arredondo. He guests on three tracks. The CD was covered here at the time and in DTBs issue 57 and 58 but was only sold in Norway.

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Our thanks to Morten Larsen for his help in getting this title.

Purple Records have announced the release of Jon Lord's Gemini Suite original studio album on CD at long last. This album, never issued on CD in the UK before, had been held back in order not to clash with any of Jon's new albums. In addition to the regular jewel case version, there is a limited edition in a gatefold digipak case, with a selection of three different covers reproducing the rare American covers.

This title (and the limited editions) are shipping now from dpas mailorder

Read more here.

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The third Sunflower Jam, organised by Ian Paice's wife Jackie in aid of charity, will take place at The Porchester Halls in London on September 25. 2008. Deep Purple are now confirmed as playing and will be joined by Jon Lord as a guest for some numbers. As before the price is prohibitive at £300 a ticket, with only a very few individual places available. Otherwise the price is £3,000 (sic) for a table seating ten folk. Mind you there is champagne and dinner thrown in! If you've just won the lottery then tootle over to thesunflowerjam.com, but be quick as the place is booking up. 

SR#jl700223 (Jon's thought about the evening are at www.jonlord.org. With thanks to Daniel Bengtsson)

Jon Lord and The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra performed Durham Concerto (a classical piece to celebrate Durham University’s 175th anniversary) on 20th October 2007 inside Durham Cathedral. A university spokeswoman said that: "the work has been specifically composed for Durham University by Jon Lord." The event was open to the public, and Peter Judd has sent us a review:

DPAS Live Review: Durham Concerto, 20th October 2007

The Durham Concerto was due to be recorded in Liverpool with The Royal Liverpool Symphony Orchestra at the end of July 2007. There is a website at http://www.durhamconcerto.com/, which contains more information and also samples of the music.

Jon Lord's Durham Concerto was performed again on April 5th 2008 at Liverpool's Philharmonic Hall with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, alongside Michael Nyman's new work GDM (a celebration of the London Routemaster doubledecker bus), and Django Bates' "genre-mingling" What It's Like To Be Alive, a piano concerto. An eclectic evening indeed!

DPAS Live Review: Durham Concerto, 6th April 2008

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Jon Lord's work for piano and orchestra 'Boom of the Tingling Strings', was performed on December 7 / 8 2006, with pianist Nelson Goerner, and the Odense Symphony Orchestra conducted by Paul Mann. The concerts took place in the Carl Nielsen Hall of the Odense Koncerthus in Denmark as part of the main subscription concert series of the Odense Symphony Orchestra, of which Paul Mann is principal conductor. The concert programme also included music by Weber and Carl Nielsen.

The following week, EMI Classics recorded Boom of the Tingling Strings (Nelson Goerner, piano), and Lord's work for string orchestra Disguises (Suite for String Orchestra) with the Odense Symfoniorkester, Paul Mann conductor. Please note Jon Lord does not be play on the album. 

The last movement is apparently fiendishly difficult, described in a tongue-in-cheek way by Jon as his ‘revenge on concert pianists’, whom he has always envied for their keyboard talents. Former EMI Debut artist Nelson Goerner is said to rise admirably to the challenge, moving Jon Lord ‘to tears’ at the recording sessions with his deftness of touch and sensitivity.

This title can be ordered at dpas mailorder and is shipping now. (clever of them to pick a bank holiday for releasing it!).

See also the EMI press release.

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The studio recording of The Durham Concerto will be released in late January 2008 on CD. Recorded in Liverpool in 2007, it lasts almost an hour. Jon Lord is one of the featured soloists.

The CD can be preordered now from dpas mailorder

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Keep up! This is a re-release of the Live At The Basement DVD, which remains exactly the same as the version you probably already have (and which features Jon Lord). In with this is an audio CD of the very first Hoochie Coochie Men Studio CD. This predates the collaborations with Jon Lord, and was only ever issued in Australia back in 2000.

SR#jl700214 (Thanks to Greg Soder)

Final details of the second Hoochie Coochie Men CD are finally emerging, a year after we first reported on the recording sessions. Titled (bizarrely) Danger: White Men Dancing, it will be issued as a single CD set, and also a CD plus free DVD (which contains three live tracks from the original Australian set, plus a documentary).

Jon Lord is helping promote the release with interviews and playbacks on Planet Rock and Total Rock radio. The CD has 13 tracks, mostly originals but with four covers. Release is now expected October 1. 2007. Anyone who preorders from dpas mailorder will automatically be sent the limited edition unless specified. Thanks to Greg Soder for the information.

The album also features guest vocals from Ian Gillan, Jimmy Barnes and Jeff Duf. fThe majority of the songs are co-written by Hoochie Coochie Men bassist Bob Daisley, but also include 'Heart Of Stone' written by Jagger/Richards, and 'Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven' ( by Don Nix;who also wrote Deep Purple Mk3/4's regular encore 'Going Down').

DPAS First Impressions: The Hoochie Coochie Men - Danger White Men Dancing new

Check out the official Hoochie Coochie Men Website   SR/DB#jl7002184

The special two hour ITV South Bank Show programme on Sir Malcolm Arnold is out in DVD and features a contribution from Jon Lord talking about the Concerto. It's not been an easy title to track down, but if you missed it on TV (as we did), dpas online are stocking it.

More details in DTB issue 59.

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